The Name of the Rose

When Gerard Segarelli was rejected by the Franciscans, he took matters into his own hands and formed the Apostolic Brethren in 1260. The Brethren, active in northern Italy, gained many followers with their life of extreme poverty and their message of repentance.

[Source]

In 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, Pope Honorius IV prohibited all mendicant orders if they were not sanctioned by the papacy. In 1280, the Bishop of Parma imprisoned Segarelli, and in 1286 banished him from the diocese.

The prohibition against unapproved mendicant orders was renewed in 1290 by Pope Nicholas IV, who also began going after those "orders"; the Brethren were a particular target.

In 1294, four members of the sect were burned at the stake. Segarelli himself was sentenced to life in prison, but on 18 July, 1300, he was burned at the stake in Parma after being made to confess that he had relapsed into heresy. The Apostolic Brethren gained a new leader in the charismatic Fra Dolcino, who is worth his own post someday.

The motto of the Brethren under Segarelli, and later under Fra Dolcino, was Poenitentiam agite [Latin: Make penitence]. This was abbreviated to Penitenziagite! and made known to millions of readers 680 years after Segarelli's execution in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.

St. Bonaventure

St. Bonaventure has been mentioned before, writing a biography of Francis of Assisi and disagreeing with Averroes' definition of the soul. He probably deserves his own entry.

He was born in either 1217 or 1221 as Giovanni di Fidanza in Bagnoregio (about 90 kilometers northwest of Rome). In his early 20s he became a Franciscan friar and studied at the University of Paris, quickly developing a reputation as a scholar. He was even made a lecturer on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard. He took his Masters degree in 1257 in the "same class" as Thomas Aquinas.

Bonaventure wanted to meld all forms of human thought in order to truly comprehend God:

He thought of Christ as the “one true master” who offers humans knowledge that begins in faith, is developed through rational understanding, and is perfected by mystical union with God. [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Bonaventure was later declared a "Doctor of the Church" for his erudition and writings, but unlike his classmate Thomas Aquinas  he was called away from the academic life. In 1273 he was made a Cardinal by Pope Gregory X and given the task of reconciling Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox-Byzantine religions. This was to culminate in the Second Council of Lyons, where he died on 15 July 1274.

It is not possible in a brief blog post to do justice to the extent of his learning or the breadth of his career: he was made Minister General of the Franciscans in 1257 to try to overcome the growing disagreement over to what extent the order should embrace poverty. We will likely see more of him in the future.

Gregory X

Today is the anniversary of the death of Pope Gregory X. He has already been mentioned in Daily Medieval, but let's take a closer look at his career.

Pope Gregory X is presented Kublai's letter by the Polos

His election as pope came after a three-year vacancy (1268-1271) in the position. The cardinals were split between French and Italian factions. Charles of Anjou, younger son of King Louis IX of France, had taken over Sicily and started to interfere with Italian politics. The French cardinals were fine with this; the Italian cardinals were not. The cardinals met in the town of Viterbo and vote after vote produced no clear candidate. Finally, the citizens of Viterbo locked them into the room where they met, removed the roof to expose them to the weather, and allowed them nothing but bread and water.

On the third day, they picked a pope.

Cardinal Teobaldo Visconti was Italian, but had lived most of his life in the extreme north and was unaffected by the recent Sicilian difficulties. He was chosen as a compromise candidate.

Visconti was not even aware that he was considered as a candidate; he wasn't there. He was with Edward I of England on the Ninth Crusade as a papal legate. While there, he had been met by the Polos, who had letters from Kublai Khan for the pope.

When word came to him that he was the new pope, his first act was to request aid for the Crusade. He then sailed for Italy and called the Second Council of Lyons to discuss the East-West Schism and corruption in the Church. He also heard from the Polos again, who pressed him (now that he was pope) on Khan's request for 100 priests to come east and explain Christianity. The new pope, who took the name Gregory X, could only offer a few Dominicans (who tarted out on the long journey, but lost heart and turned back).

Gregory did establish relations with the Mongols, however, when the Mongol ruler Abaqa Khan (1234 - 1282) sent a delegation to the Council of Lyons to discus military cooperation between the Mongols and Europe for a Crusade. Plans were made, money was raised, and then Gregory died on 10 January 1276. The project failed.